OLBERMANN PREPARING LEGAL BATTLE AGAINST CURRENT

Keith Olbermann has vowed to sue Current TV owners Joel Hyatt and Al Gore, claiming that their accusations against him “are untrue and will be proved so in the legal actions I will be filing against them presently.” Olbermann, who was fired last Friday, will presumably offer as evidence email messages sent by himself and his manager to Hyatt and Gore in which he complained that they were not abiding by promises to back him with a professional-looking show. Excerpts from some of those messages were published Sunday by media writer Howard Kurtz on TheDailyBeast.com. “They add up to a portrait of a dysfunctional alliance that was doomed from the start,” wrote Kurtz. “Where Current management viewed Olbermann as a chronic complainer … the liberal commentator came to believe that he had joined a rinky-dink operation, even if the channel was committed to paying him $50 million over five years.” In one message, Olbermann’s manager, Michael Price, wrote that management of the channel was “completely out of touch … with the realities of producing a first-rate show” and that Countdown “more closely resembles cable access than that of a cable news show.” Olbermann seemed to refer to that argument in his statement, posted on Twitter. “Mr. Gore and Mr. Hyatt, instead of abiding by their promises and obligations and investing in a quality news program, finally thought it was more economical to try to get out of my contract,” he wrote. Finally, he remarked that joining Current was a “foolish” mistake on his part. “That lack of judgment is mine and mine alone, and I apologize again for it.”

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